Conventionally, a search engine ranks websites based on a frequency of terms within a website that matches the terms included in a user query. The conventional search engine returns the ranked websites as a result set to the user. Additionally, the conventional search engine considers a location of a ranked website to decide whether the ranked website is of interest to the user. For instance, a website operated and located in the United States of America would more likely be of interest to a user in the United States of America accessing the Internet from a machine in the United States of America than a similar website operated and located in a foreign country. The conventional search engine is configured to return, within the top result set, the website operated and located in the United States of America. The similar website located and operated in the foreign country is not returned within the top result set.
The conventional search engine selects a location of a website by parsing a top level domain of a uniform resource locator of the website to extract a country identifier that corresponds to the location of the website. Alternatively, the conventional search engine selects a location of the website by identifying an internet protocol address corresponding to the uniform resource locator. The internet protocol address for the website corresponds to a specific location that is associated with the website.
The conventional search engines introduce errors when selecting top results using location. The conventional search engines erroneously omit a website that is globally popular from the top results set. For example, a website that individuals all over the world frequently access and operated but is located in the United States of America may be erroneously excluded from the top result set for users located in foreign countries. Because the website is operated and located in the United States of America, the conventional search engines erroneously omit websites from the top result set that should be included in the top result set for the foreign countries.